J-Horror Virus, The (2023)

[bunniefuu]

- What we would call J-horror

is something that's quite

specific, not only in terms

of the style of the films,

but also in terms

of the period

in which they were made.

- The female vengeful spirit,

Sadako being the most famous,

but usually a figure

of a woman or a child

or a young girl in a

white dress with long,

black hair often

obscuring her face.

- J-horror is a group of

films by a fairly small group

of directors that all came out

within a fairly short period

of time, and they

tended to share a lot

of similar themes and

characters and a kind

of similar aesthetic.

And they were made by

people who-- a lot of whom

went to the same

school together,

and who were also

film scholars.

So these were people who

were making movies, watching

each other's movies, writing

about each other's movies,

and really kind of being

influenced by each other.

- In both "The Ring"

and "Dark Water,"

We have this vengeful spirit,

who drowned, basically.

In the case of

Sadako, in a well.

In the case of "Dark

Water," in a water tank,

and so you have this image

of this girl with long, black

hair who's dripping water.

And I think water shows up

in a lot of these films,

and that comes back to the

fact that a lot of the films

really are connected to ideas

about pregnancy and birth

and wombs and that just being

kind of scary and creepy.

So that sort of water

imagery pops up a lot.

- This is just a

really familiar figure

from Japanese folklore

and literature,

the idea of the yurei,

the kind of vengeful

spirit figure,

the yamanba, the sort

of mountain witch.

Look in a lot of places in

Japanese art, short stories,

in theater, and

you will definitely

find a lot of

images of a woman,

white dress, long

black hair, kind

of haunting different spaces.

- You had this movie called

or "Psychic Vision,"

which was directed by Teruyoshi

Shi and is kind of a found

footage horror movie.

It's about a sort of

haunted audio cassette

and this footage that's

found dealing with that.

- Because J-horror had

been from its beginning,

from its inception, in the

early '90s, and this is

important because the year of

the collapsed bubble economy,

the collapse of the bubble

economy is the same year that

the very first J-horror

title ever came out,

which is "Scary True Stories."

Both happened in 1991.

Probably because the J-horror

style focuses so much

on the everyday, lived-in

reality of regular people

and shows how this reality can

quickly crumble and give way

to uncertainty,

there is probably

in that fictional motif, that

fictional narrative template,

that fictional stylistic trope,

something that connected very

closely, I think, to this

experience that a lot of people

were having in

their daily life.

- It was in 1994 that what

we-- what would become known

as J-horror moved from its

straight to video market onto

television with the

TV series ,

"The Haunted School."

Confusingly, there's a film

series of exactly the same name

that ran concurrently, but

there were several series

of this that ran throughout

the '90s, and this basically

brought together

all of the talents

that we know from J-horror.

Directors like Kiyoshi

Kurosawa and Hideo

Nakata and the

screenwriters Hiroshi

Takahashi and Chiaki Konaka.

Brought them all together.

And later, Takashi

Shimizu also.

- "The Haunted School"

series is where J-horror

became not just a

genre or a style,

but it became a movement.

- "The Ghost Actress,"

or ,

also known as "Don't Look Up,"

was the first really theatrical

J-horror and the film

that sort of moved Hideo

Nakata into the foreground.

It's basically a haunted ghost

story on a-- in a film studio,

so it unfolds quite a lot

like "Jaganre," actually,

with celluloids, the ghost

manifesting itself on celluloid

rather than on audiotape.

- The film school of Tokyo

was formed in the late 1990s,

so just as J-horror and the

people who had been making

J-horror had become more

or less famous phenomena

and famous filmmakers.

And because I think the

J-horror movement was also

an intellectual movement, they

thought intellectually about

how should we make these films

to create certain effects,

they really thought about

what this means as a question

of cinema to make scary films.

And so there was always

a theoretical aspect

to the J-horror movement.

- J-horror also deals a

lot with urban loneliness

and isolation, particularly in

the films of Kiyoshi Kurosawa.

And so, in addition to stories

about ghosts and monsters

and supernatural

things, you also just

have the very everyday

dread and fear

of being a person living

alone in a huge city

and maybe feeling

really isolated

and alone, even though

you're in a crowd.

- It's kind of like a stain on

the order of things, you know,

and it radiates outward into

the normality around it.

- "The Ring" was originally

released on a double bill with

or "Spiral"

directed by Joji Idah,

and this was the direct

adaptation of the sequel novel.

- The success of "The Ring"

films led to a sort of mini

wave in Japan of films

fashioned in this

J-horror style,

and, confusingly,

this crept overseas as well.

We had in Korea an unofficial

remake of "The Ring"

called "Ring Virus" in 1999.

"The Ring" film obviously

called for a final

installment,

and that was "Ring Zero,"

and this time,

the story went back

to Koji Suzuki,

and it was based on a short

story called "Birthday,"

which was published in an

anthology in 1999

by Koji Suzuki,

which explored

various aspects

of the "Ring" universe,

and went back to look at--

this particular story,

went back to look at Sadako,

and when she was a teenager.

- Why did you try

to k*ll your baby?

Why?

- Because my baby told me to.

- "The Ring" really just

opened the floodgates.

Because it was such a

massive theatrical success,

it was followed by a

lot of sequels and sort

of like spin-offs.

- Films that took a little bit

different approach to horror,

but still using elements

borrowed from J-horror,

such as a film like "Audition,"

for example, used the long,

black hair to very good

effect, but to create a very,

very different film with

nothing supernatural in it.

- One of my favorite

Takashi Shimizu films,

actually was made outside

of the "Ju-On Cycle".

It was a film

called ,

"The Stranger from Afar", and

this was part of a project

made in conjunction with

the film school of

Tokyo, .

It was written

by Chiaki Konaka

and actually starred

Shinya Tsukamoto,

who is, of course,

better known

for his work

behind the camera

such as "Tetsuo the Iron Man."

It was shot on digital

video and very much, I

think, foregrounded

this use of technology

with this story of-- of

Tsukamoto being a news

cameraman who's

obsessed with, like,

confronting fear and

capturing it on videotape.

- Well, the funny

thing about "Ju-On"

is that it came around at

a time where it seemed like

J-horror had run out of steam.

And certainly as a genre of

theatrically released films,

after the success of "Ring,"

in very quick succession,

various companies had started

making films in

the same style,

so there had been a horror

boom in the J-horror boom.

But it was running out

of steam, by 2000, 2001.

And in 2001, for example, you

get Kiyoshi Kurosawa's film

"Pulse," Masato

Harada's film "Inugami,"

and both of those didn't do

very well at all theatrically.

And so for "Ju-On"

to come along

after that and become

a success was kind

of a puzzling development.

- "Ju-On" is the

start of, essentially,

the second era of

J-horror and the second

generation of J-horror.

- You can't have my son.

So take me.

- Rachel!

No!

Rachel!

Rachel!

- So, one reason that

J-horror became really popular

in the United

States, for example,

when it did in the early

2000s, I would say,

it was really just kind

of a case of good timing,

because this was a period when

US horror had been dominated

for quite a while by

mostly really gory

and violent films and

slasher films, and it

was getting kind of tired.

And I think people were just

sort of over that plot line,

and then you had a

film like "The Ring"

that showed up that was very

much a callback to horror from

the 1960s and 1970s, movies

like "The Haunting of Hill

House," that were just

much more concerned

with atmospheric dread.

- And I promise you,

I will make it fun.

And just think, the first

stamp in your new passport

is going to be Japan.

How cool is that?

- That is cool.

- It's okay now.

It's okay.

- Horror as a genre is better

when it has the opportunity

to pick and beg and

borrow from as many people

and countries and

cultures as possible.

And if we look at how J-horror

sort of revived horror

in the United States

in the early 2000s,

just kind of gave it

a shot in the arm,

where it had been sort of

lifeless for a little while,

I think we can see

how J-horror just

proved influential

for a lot of people

who are making movies now.

- The remakes of "Ring," "The

Grudge," and "Dark Water,"

for example, meant that

there was now a big

audience overseas for J-horror

films or J-horror film remakes.

And this led to the producer

of the original "Ring"

films and "The

Grudge", Taka Ishii,

developing a strand of films

called J-horror theater.

And these included works

by Masayuki Ochiai,

Norio Tsuruta, Kiyoshi

Kurosawa, all of the big names

in J-horror.

What I think was interesting

about these films

was that they were

explicitly marketed

as J-horror under this

J-horror theater banner.

There were some interesting

films amongst them, for sure,

but the cycle

actually petered out.

And I think in 2010, when

the J-horror theater was

discontinued, we can

mark a sense of closure

to this idea of J-horror

as a self-contained genre

with many of the same creative

people working within it.

Many of these directors have

gone on to explore their ideas

in other forms and other

films, and at the same time,

you've had a lot of

new blood come in,

notably people like

Koji Shiraishi.

- Mari Asato's "Bilocation"

is just such a meaty film.

It is trafficking in the

traditions of J-horror,

but it is very

much its own thing.

And, even more

importantly, I think

that the kind of old school

J-horror, even though it

featured many female

characters and had

a big focus on domestic space

and kind of domestic issues,

there really weren't many

women working on those films,

whether they were

writing or directing.

And so with Mari

Asato's films, you just

see a different perspective.

- The global impact of J-horror

has certainly been profound,

but I don't mean in

just carbon copies

of films featuring girls,

ghosts, with long black hair.

But just in that sense

of atmosphere and dread

I think is very much-- has

filtered into horror filmmaking

from across the

globe, and that's

going to be the lasting

legacy of J-horror.

- The idea of curses

that never end,

basically things going

viral, has been a narrative--

has been a motif

in the narratives

of J-horror films since the--

since the very beginning.